The copyright troll Righthaven seems to have given up and is not even bothering to show up at court.

According to Tech Dirt CEO Steve Gibson is working at another job... hopefully something in the food service industry that requires a paper hat...
while he is being investigated by the Nevada Bar and main lawyer Shawn Mangano apparently has completely stopped responding to all attempts to contact him, even by the court. "Psst! Tell 'em I'm not in! You think I went to South Africa!"
All the company's appeals have been dismissed "for lack of prosecution" and last week it had one of its main cases closed, with prejudice.

#5
"Steven Gibson . . . says the attorneys are unfairly trying to pin the blame on him for not producing the data. He claims the responsibility lies not with him or the company but with an attorney who has represented Righthaven."

Airbus's A380 superjumbo encountered fresh operational problems on Tuesday, when two aircraft had to abandon flights because of separate difficulties.

An A380 operated by Singapore Airlines and flying from Singapore to Frankfurt had to return to the Asian city state after one of its four engines developed a fault and had to be shut down. A superjumbo operated by China Southern Airlines ZNH and flying from Beijing to Guangzhou turned back to the Chinese capital after a malfunction with the air pressure system in the passenger cabin.

These incidents follow an order by regulators last month for inspections of all 71 A380s that have been delivered to Airbus customers because of a wing cracking problem.

The European Aviation Safety Agency wants airlines to check for cracks on wing components and carriers including Emirates Airline, the largest A380 operator, are having to repair their super jumbos.

Singapore Airlines said one of its A380 flying from Singapore to Frankfurt with 430 passengers onboard turned back almost three hours into the flight after the crew reported a problem with one of the superjumbo's four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines. The airline described the problem as a "surge", which typically involves a difficulty with airflow around the engine.

"We are looking into the incident and the engine will undergo thorough inspections in consultation with Rolls-Royce," said Singapore Airlines, the launch customer for the A380 in 2007.

Rolls-Royce said it was investigating the issue with Singapore Airlines. Airbus, the main subsidiary of EADS, the European aerospace group, declined to comment.

Of the 71 A380s that have been delivered by Airbus to airlines, 39 have Rolls-Royce's Trent 900 engines.

In November 2010, the A380 suffered its worst safety scare when one of the Rolls-Royce engines on a Qantas superjumbo exploded. The aircraft had to make an emergency landing in Singapore and Qantas responded by temporarily grounding its entire A380 fleet.

Around the same time, Singapore Airlines grounded three of its A380s to replace some of the Rolls-Royce engines after finding signs of oil staining.

In December 2010, an investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau found that an oil fire was the most likely cause of the Qantas A380 engine explosion.

#4
after a malfunction with the air pressure system in the passenger cabin.

That's worrisome. I remember from a few years ago there was a scandal where the European maker of cabin pressure regulators basically destroyed an American engineer when he went public about a failure mode that could suck the air out of a airline cabin.

#5
From 2005: Airbus whistleblower faces prisonJoseph Mangan thought he was doing Airbus a favour when he warned of a small but potentially lethal fault in the new A380 super-jumbo, the biggest and most costly passenger jet ever built.

Instead, Europe's aviation giant rubbished his claims, and now he faces ruin, a morass of legal problems, and - soon - an Austrian prison. Mr Mangan is counting the days at his Vienna flat across the street from Schonbrünn Palace, wondering whether the bailiffs or the police will knock first.

His troubles began in September 2004 when he contacted the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), claiming that the cabin pressure system in the A380 might not be safe, and that this had been concealed.

#6
As someone who is currently working for a maker of interiors for the A380 and A330 cargo versions, this isn't good news. But as for the Screamliner; I am waiting 5 years before i jump in one. I fully expect one to come apart in flight due, not to the design, but to unreported damage as a result of impact with ground equipment. Metal airplanes leave dents ( witness marks) when they get hit, carbon fiber doesn't, but that doesn't mean that sub-surface delaminations between the plies can't start and grow into failures. throw in the pressurization cycling and resultant flexing, and things can go wrong in a hurry. Had that happen on the plastic winged A-6s due to tools being dropped. Good design, human errors caused damage. and stuff.

A Canadian court on Monday quashed portions of a law banning brothels and living off the avails of prostitution, lifting key barriers which it said put sex trade workers at risk of harm.Well, that's convenient. Barcelona just outlawed street walking, so the Spanish hookers can now emigrate to Yellow Knife or Sakatoon...
The Ontario Court of Appeal, however, upheld a ban on communicating for the purposes of selling sex.

The ruling would effectively decriminalize prostitution in Ontario province. However,women are made to be loved, not understood... it was suspended for 12 months to give parliament an opportunity to redraft the legislation if so chooses.

It may also be appealed to the Supreme Court.

The effect of these laws is "grossly disproportionate to its goal of curbing problems such as noise and congestion caused by street prostitution," said the court of appeal in its decision.

The panel of judges said the ban is excessive also because it "prevents hookers from hiring bodyguards, drivers, or others who could keep them safe, and may actually increase the likelihood that hookers will be exploited by forcing them to seek protection from those who are willing to risk a charge under this provision."

Three Toronto women challenged Canada's anti-prostitution laws in October 2009, arguing that prohibiting solicitation endangers hookers by forcing them to seek customers on street corners.

They called for decriminalizing prostitution and for the right to open brothels to provide a safer environment for hookers.

A lower court agreed with them, saying "the danger faced by hookers greatly outweighs any harm which may be faced by the public."

Constitutional lawyer Alan Young, who represented Terri Jean Bedford, Amy Lebovitch and Valerie Scott, told a presser the judges recognized that "this law does not work and is hurting people."

"It's very rare that you see an endorsement from the Court of Appeal of this nature which I say is a stinging critique of what the parliament of Canada has been doing with the sex trade," he said.

"Sex workers will be safer and society will not be negatively impacted by this decision," he concluded.

Nikki Thomas, the executive director of Sex Professionals of Canada added that despite the decision, public opinion must still be swayed.

"We must convince people that sex workers are not to be feared, are not to be considered worthless, are not to be looked at as less than human," she said.

#5
I know some people from a prom that won't be going there unless the brothel is for gays. Them boys put up a nice piece on the internet before Africa and the Middle East got invaded think the enemy read it?

[Dawn] Tunisia's governing religious party said it will not enshrine Islamic law in the new constitution and will maintain the secular nature of the north African state, putting it sharply at odds with hardliners.

Ennahda, which emerged as the biggest party after Tunisia's first democratic elections last year, said on Monday that it would keep the first article of the 1956 constitution in the new basic law now being drafted.

"We are not going to use the law to impose religion," Rached Ghannouchi, leader of the moderate religious party, told a presser.

The first article of the previous constitution stipulates that "Tunisia is a free, independent and sovereign state, its religion is Islam, its language is Arabic and it is a republic."

The Ennahda decision "aims to strengthen the national consensus and promote the country's successful democratic transition by uniting the majority of political forces to confront the challenges facing the country," added another leading figure in the party, Zied Doulatli.

The decision angered the ultra-conservative Salafists...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them... in Tunisia, who have been pushing for sharia to be enshrined in the constitution and staged a number of demonstrations to press their demands.

"This is a betrayal of all those who voted for this party...and the principles of the Islamist movement," Hechmi Haamdi of the hardline Islamist Al-Arydha movement told AFP.

Ennahda won 90 of the 217 seats in the new constituent assembly following the first election after longtime dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali was toppled in January.

'Israel poaching Egyptian soccer players'
Egyptian media, politicians accuse Israel of luring Egyptian athletes to play on its teams at home and worldwide

Tensions over Israel's peace treaty with Egypt have been sidelined in recent weeks by an issue no less important -- soccer. According to Egyptian media reports, the local parliament has accused the Jewish state of poaching players of Egyptian heritage for the Israeli premier league.

Egyptian television first touched on the issue, mentioning Mahmoud Abbas of the Hapoel Tel Aviv team, George Imses of Bnei Yehuda and several members of Bnei Sakhnin as examples of athletes of Egyptian origin who have opted to play for Israel. According to the report, there are also 150 Arab players who are part of various Israeli soccer teams.

The head of Egypt's Defense and National Security Committee, Ahmed Ismail, has requested People's Assembly to "carefully study the possibility that Israel might be pulling or even luring Egyptian athletes to play for (its teams) at international capacity as well."

Mohamed Hafez, who heads the Assembly's Youth and Sports Committee, demanded in response the athletes to return to Egypt. He said that he is meeting with bigwigs in the sports industry in an effort to prevent such "unacceptable" incidents from repeating.

[An Nahar] The new head of Soddy Arabia's notorious inquisitors religious police has said he will cut back on the number of "undercover" patrols by his organization which enforces the kingdom's strict Islamic rules.

"The number of undercover vehicles will be reduced in all regions, and we shall reconsider their tasks by either regulating their work or cancelling it all together," Abdullatif al-Sheikh said, quoted by local media on Tuesday.

He said that members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice will "stop chasing" violators and in the case of "minor breaches" will note down the culprit's vehicle registration number and pass it on to regular police.

"We shall not tolerate any mistakes," he said referring to the behavior of his 4,000-strong force, after several incidents stirred anger among Saudis.

The monarch, a cautious reformer, in January appointed Sheikh, a moderate member of an influential religious family, to replace Abdulaziz al-Humain at the helm of the organization which ensures strict application of the country's ultra-conservative version of Islam.

But the head of the Association for Civil Rights, Mohammed al-Qahtani, downplayed the importance of the step, describing it as just a "cosmetic change."

"They are trying to convince people that they are doing something, but their job will not be regulated without political reforms," he told Agence La Belle France Presse.

"It is an attempt by authorities to blame a former chief and appoint another... while authorities, especially the interior ministry, are responsible for the commission," he added.

In 2002, the force, known as the mutaween, reportedly prevented firemen from entering an all-girls school that was ablaze because of the segregation-of-sexes policy, and blocked the girls from escaping because they were not wearing the obligatory veil.

Fourteen girls were trampled to death and 50 hurt in a stampede after the fire broke out.

The inquisitors religious police prevent women from driving, require them to be covered from head to foot in black, ban public entertainment, and force all commerce, from supermarkets to petrol stations, to come to a halt at prayer times, five times a day.

#7
I am with you newc. It should be about unit cohesion, not fragmented groups of special interests. I realize of course that I may be speaking against some sports teams, but overall, those teams tend to generate school cohesion. Rather than "dont ask, dont tell", maybe it should be "Dont flaunt Dont flash"

Interestingly, in Canada, we have been in a "one man, one kit, one fight" for years and have had antiharrassment policies for years. There have been incidents, there always will be I think, but not this. OMG, not this.

#4
Notice the same subgroup, within a self defined community, historically never seems to move on to the 'oppressive' white(-Hispanic) neighborhoods to express similar outrage. Unless they arrange to have a police escort, which then takes a lot of the looting and destruction out of the protest.

#6
I remember during the Rodney King riots, I was working in Orange County and living in Riverside County. The lines at the gun stores in Orange County were long. We could see the smoke rising from fires in LA county. The rioting seemed to stop right about at the county line.

People in Orange county at that time were preparing to fight to protect their property.

One of the best clips I saw on the TV news was where some thug broke the lock on a door to a liquor store and went in. Then about 45 seconds later you see him BACKING out. As he exits, you see an arm with a pistol pointed at him poke out of the door.

The looting might go on in the more "liberal" areas but it won't be tolerated everywhere.

#9
They're just taking reparations the way Farrkhan and Shaprton told them. I give them points for honesty: these violent thieves are skipping the middle-man (government) and stealing directly from the productive people, collectivism with its more bare face (and fangs) exposed.

General Verrilli, today you are arguing that the penalty is not a tax. Tomorrow you are going to be back, and you will be arguing that the penalty is a tax. Has the Court ever held that something that is a tax for purposes of the taxing power under the Constitution is not a tax under the Anti-Injunction Act?

#4
Just listened to audio of Verrilli trying to make his argument. It was so painful I couldn't get through the whole thing. He's not good at defending the indefensible like some of them are. Ginsberg and Kagan had to speak up and make his arguments for him.

 The federal government provides flood insurance because no in the private sector will, because not enough people buy flood insurance.
 Hoping to entice people to buy insurance  which proves cheaper for everyone after a disaster  the government subsidized many rates. Many homeowners still choose not to buy.
 After paying out claims on many of those subsidized premiums in recent years, the government says it has to raise rates.
 Higher premiums might force people to drop their insurance. Those who keep their policies could pay a higher price for being responsible.

#10
What if I'm lactose intolerant? I'm not, and I do not consume milk outside of an ingredient such as cheese, butter, so forth...so shall I be forced to purchase milk at a rate where it would be as if I drank 8oz of milk per day even if it goes to waste?

Lack of commerce is still affecting commerce? So every time I walk by a store I must go in and purchase something because not to do so affects that store's commerce?

What about auto insurance, certainly automobiles enter someone's life at some point, should I have auto insurance so that, at some point in my life, I buy a car?

Some people do not have phones; they have only their cell phone or smart phone. Should they also have to pay for a physical landline?

#11
swksvolFF - I am flat out allergic to cows milk and chicken eggs. The fricking FDA had no problem with adding those two ingredients to everything under the sun. In all fairness would it not even out the score to demand soy for folks like me everywhere milk or whey is used and say almond or coconut for those allergic to milk and soy? BTW... look at the price of almond and coconut milk ice cream or drinking milk.... (triple or more than subsidized cows milk)...
So up the subsidies on everything to equalized all products and create huge costly bureaucracies of illiterate Democratic workers to smother whole fields.

[Dawn] Lahore: A lack of interest on the part of police to prevent a mob, protesting against power outages, from turning violent resulted in the death of a labourer and serious injuries to another near Shalamar Chowk on GT Road on Monday.

Witnesses told Dawn a good number of workers of small industrial units in the localities along Bund Road in Shalamar Town had started gathering in the Daroghawala main bazaar around noon.

A majority of the main bazaar traders succumbed to the demand of the workers to shut down their businesses and join the protest. After gaining ground, the protesters came on GT Road and started forcing shop owners, mechanics and others to shut down their concerns.

Asad Ali was getting petrol for his cycle of violence when some of the protesters approached the staff manning the filling station near Shalamar Chowk.

"Some half a dozen youth asked the salesmen to shut down the pump. The staff refused and the youth asked their colleagues to ransack it.

Someone from the pump staff ordered the security guards to open fire. "I pressed the accelerator and managed to rescue myself from there while hearing gunshots," the youth told Dawn.

Ashiq, a shopkeeper, said the coppers remained unmoved when two men sustained bullet injuries.

"One of the injured breathed his last in front of my eyes. The crowd became uncontrollable after the death of the man and the protesters ransacked everything in sight. Had the police taken action in time, the situation would not have worsened to this extent," he said.

Heavy contingents of police were present at Lakshmi Chowk, Scheme Mor on Multan Road, main boulevards of Allama Iqbal Town and Sabzazaar where traffic was disrupted by protesters, some of whom also pelted vehicles with stones.

A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.